Submission Number: UBR-DEIS-00395 -- Oral Comment at Public Meeting 

Received: 12/1/2020 12:00:00 AM
Commenter: Mike Hyde
Organization: 
State: 

Agency: STB
Initiative: Uinta Basin Railway EIS
Attachments: No Attachments
Submission Text
Hello, this is Mike Hyde.· I'm a resident Roosevelt, Utah, one of the few speakers
today who actually lives in the project area.

What we have heard today are not substantive comments, but the height of hypocrisy.· The people from the Salt Lake area lecturing us in the Uinta Basin on air pollution, climate change, water quality, et cetera, while they themselves live in the midst of the most polluted area of the state.· During the winter, you have to chew the air in Salt Lake before you can breathe it.· And that air drifts eastward into the Uinta Basin and contributes to our wintertime ozone problems.

There's a full range of infrastructure in the Salt Lake valley, including railways, freeways and airports, which have enabled that area to prosper economically.· In contrast, the Uinta Basin has been left behind when it comes to such prosperity, the main reason is that the basin is subject to the booms and busts of the oil and gas industry.· Due to the lack of transportation infrastructure, we in the basin are at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to attracting new companies that might help diversify our economy.

Duchesne County and Uintah County have been found by the department of workforce services to have the least diversified economies in the state.· If the oil and gas industry dies as some of the climate change activists speaking today suggest, the rail line will still be here to help support new industries who might be attracted here for our better quality of life, less crime, less traffic and lower land costs.

The DEIS does a great job of analyzing the environmental impacts and how mitigation would minimize those impacts.· I am in full support of the project. Thank you.